On Tuesday, Elon Musk’s X, the microblogging platform formerly recognized as Twitter, introduced X Money, a new digital wallet and payments service. Designed for peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions, this platform will allow users to send and receive funds seamlessly. Users can transfer money from their bank accounts to their digital wallets, enabling them to send payments to others within the service. X Money aims to compete directly with existing payment applications like Cashapp, Venmo, and Zelle.
X Money to Implement Visa Direct for Quick Transactions
Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X, shared insights about the new platform on Tuesday, indicating that support for X Money accounts will be available “later this year.” The initiative has teamed up with Visa, allowing users to conveniently transfer funds into their ‘X Wallet’ through Visa Direct. This feature will enable users to proceed with P2P payments within the service.
Alongside the ability to deposit funds into their digital wallets, X Money will permit users to link their debit cards to their accounts for P2P transactions. The CEO noted that many applications in the United States, including Cashapp and Venmo, already offer enabling P2P functionalities.
Furthermore, users will have the option to withdraw funds, likely from their X Wallet, back to their bank accounts. Although specific timelines for the U.S. rollout of X Money have not been provided, Visa confirmed in a post that users holding X Money accounts in the United States would be able to execute real-time transfers utilizing their debit cards.
A Step Toward the ‘Everything App’
Since acquiring Twitter and rebranding it as X, Elon Musk has openly expressed his vision for the platform. The entrepreneur aims to evolve X into an all-encompassing application modeled after China’s WeChat, featuring functionalities for payments, purchases, messaging, and more.
The platform has been diligently working on integrating digital payment support over the past few years. In December 2023, Musk informed Cathie Wood of ARK Invest that X would require licenses from multiple U.S. states before it could operate as a money transmitter.
As of Wednesday, a support document for X Money indicates that the initiative has garnered licenses from 41 states, and X Payments LLC is officially registered as a Money Service Business (MSB) with the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
X Money has the potential to go head-to-head with PayPal, the payments service formed after the merger of Confinity with X.com, which was co-founded by Musk in 2000. The billionaire’s aspirations for a payments platform have been on the table for over 20 years, and the launch of X Money could finally make those ambitions a reality later this year.
